[applause] >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> up next, "after words" with guest host vincent bzdek. this week barbara parry and her latest book, the life and times of a political matriarch. using newly released diaries and letters a presidential historian exports the contribution to and influence over her famed family dynasty. this program is about an hour. >> it is good to be here with you talking about the kennedys. i think both of us having grown up catholic, i think the kennedys have a particular resonance for us. i wanted to star ryan often best you your supreme court's dollar, presidential scholar. how do you get interested? >> i have been interested in the

kennedy family since i was a little tyke. when i was four years of my mother took me and my brothers to downtown louisville kentucky. we live in the suburbs. completely drawn to this new candid on the scene in the presidential race. senator john f. kennedy. >> because he was catholic. >> i really do. i have to think that was a major part of it. in addition to which he was about her age, so there was that new generation to which the torch was being passed. i'll was point out that while she loved history and politics, she was not that active in grass-roots politics and did not like driving downtown on very busy streets. i know that it was the charisma and probably catholicism and his handsome works. >> a pretty good looking guy. >> a good-looking guy. think she was drawn to that. she got they're extra early with me as a 4-year-old and my two older brothers and tow and put us right in front of the podium so that we would be sure to see

him. >> so, my gosh. that's great. you did a lot of your research up at the jfk library after they opened up some records and tell me about that because that gives you something new, some new insights into rows. >> this book is the one that is believe based upon her papers that opened up in the fall of 2006. acustar the way that happens in terms of my finding out about it. i had been teaching for many years and had published a book on jacqueline kennedy and her first ladyship. my students do that now was interested in all things kennedy and happened to be on leave. i was at the university, alma maters. at this e-mail from a former student. and they said, did you see the papers are just been opened to mechanize said, i have seen it. iran wide awake to the article asserted of our new. then i decided that this has to be my next project. in between the supreme court.

>> in those boxes there were letters. and some of them were quite -- they are quite a scolding. i even enjoyed the fact that she was actor john kennedy when he was in office to shape up a little bit and now he presented himself and his manners. and tell me about those letters. >> well, first of all, the boxes , 250. >> two and 50. >> 250. went through another 50 of the family photographs. the book contains a number of photographs of are rare and have never been seen before. i was just amazed at the letter writing prodigious this. from the time she was a young woman and in addition to a 250 boxes of her official papers i came across on the internet private letters that were held in private collection, and i am unable to gather some of those together as well. >> but no one has written. >> no one has written because no one had been accepted families

of the original people to whom she sent the letters. there are released a half-dozen assured over the time she was a teenager of. her childhood friends including about how she wanted to go to the college which was a plan afforded by her father trolly up until new agency talks about residence time in hollywood and mentions gloria swanson. the letters, yes, rose was the typical victorian mother, always interested in our children looked. became an invalid. but up until that point for all of our mothers she was constantly after the children to be better. and, in fact, to be in a victorian kind of way as perfect as they could be.

>> that word victorian, she really very much try to fit herself into that mold, even though all around her things were changing. she was born in 1890. the suffragette movement was growing stronger 20's. early teens. she did not step into those roles. she's kept a very victorian row. >> i think because she was raised in such a conservative household and a conservative catholicism, a conservative society, she was a woman, girl. there was no way that she was going to be trained to be the kind of public office holders that her father was in better sons become. having said that, i think her life is filled with paradoxes command that is one of them. while she was not a feminist and did not begin as a suffragette she pushed the boundaries as far she could within those parameters suppressed and as far

as she could to become a vocal but person for the kennedy family whenever possible. trained to do that by her father . should go out on the campaign trail with him when she was a teenager. so she in some ways would push the of the low. but in other she was certainly not a suffragette or feminist by any stretch of the imagination. >> before we talk about the role she played in forming that, what do you think was important about her father not letting her go there? >> while, the story is that she had her heart set on going. she was an a student coming to high-school. she went to the dorchester. >> there was intellect there. >> there was. a very bright woman. she herself strove for perfection and all things. she loved trying to be the perfect student and usually live up to run high standards. she does she was ready to go and

throw was. the story is that the of boston encounter father, the mayor of boston, and said this would not be a very good idea politically. the catholic mayor, the irish catholic mayor of boston to send your daughter, your eldest child to a non catholic institution. so that water plant and she expressed late in life that that was one of the saddest moments of her life when she found that devonshire rented it. >> this was a woman who did not express much regret. >> she did not. i often point out the picture on the front of the book. at first there was a bit distracted by the gabba of water that seems to be in the forefront. then i decided this is the perfect metaphor because folks will notice it is exactly half full of water. that was held rose usually viewed life. she was the eternal optimist. that does not mean that impression did not have said moments she tried to keep an

optimistic appraisal live. in addition not to be able to go to wellesley, our father added insult to injury and center a way to oppression, and to broaden, convent, not that she was going to become a nun because she had fallen in love with her future husband. and we think that was part of the reason that they center abroad. to get her way. they were not always political allies. and so that completely approving of kennedy. >> there were rivals. >> indeed. indeed. so this was a problem. cissy her fall in love and sometimes rival sun. and he also picked out a suitor for her and wanted her to marry a neighbor boy who was also catholic and irish and was doing well in the business world.

parents were in construction. so they thought that would be the perfect match. rose was not to be deterred even by was started to be two years of a convent to be cheaper sweater father to send her back after one year. >> in her own way they're is a spirit expressing itself already >> there is a law which i find ironic. when her daughter decides she's going to marry the protestant noblemen during world war ii, the effervescent child. in many ways like her mother, but oftentimes that creates conflict. i think it was ironic that rose remembered. not to be denied. of course she did marry. the marriage lasted four months and he was killed in europe. >> let's talk about joe.

jill, i mean, he gets a lot of credit. he was a patriarchal figure. larger than life. even some of the sons give him credit to bring the family and the greatness. added that marriage work? because your book makes the point -- and you see a lot of it in the research that you have done that rose was a partner and was a significant player, especially in joe's absence as informing the family. >> right. i would say that the marriage, no doubt about that. they both loved each other very much. by looking and all the letters as well as nine children, there was definitely love. his letters are very warm and very loving. in some ways more so than roses to him. i think you have to start with a teenage romance that i don't think ever laughter.

think that concept of the first love in teenage head, puppy love that did mature into a bowl of my think that was always with there. and know that her husband was unfaithful to her. that was a cross to bear as rose would have said. >> data deal breaker. >> it was not a deal breaker. in 1920 after rose center for child, she left jobs. i can't do this anymore. we don't know all of the details. we don't know if she was overwhelmed by having four children in five years. was it that she was having some postpartum depression. worried about her husband. he was building a business career. even if he had not been unfaithful, he was, lot. she was just frustrated and supposedly your father said to her, you are a catholic woman, a

catholic marriage. you must go home and make this marriage work. and certainly she did for over 40 years. >> divorce just was not an option. >> was not an option for her. i checked with catholic church -- catholic clergy even today. what if someone came to you today and said to me, we would say probably when a priest would have said to her 1920's. it's not that different. has not changed. you're married. you have made this choice pretty much, and make it work and bring up your children in the fate. so rose did that with a caveat. we must say that she absented herself a lot of times from the household. sometimes staying within the same bounce of the households of that when the family spends its summers at diana she had a little college -- cottage. it was her own space then she put down the beach so that she could get away from what she described as the boisterousness of ron children.

she said, i went to our word football games. i understood real football. added not know what they were playing. all i know is it was loud and noisy. she would retreat to edison college -- cottage on the beach. hurricane came and swept away. another one out there. she joked about it. after two hurricanes and decided this was not meant to be. i would not have my coverage on the beach in more. i just went to paris. >> to travel a lot. >> adelle lot. she did. she loved could to work. she could not win every year to get to paris to see the latest fashion. so she would go three or four times per year before the war to hit the fashion that bring them home. sieges loves travel. she had done this with a father. she had gone and political trips . south and latin america which

was very unusual for women in her generation. so she had the wanderlust and the time she was a young girl. very proud of the fact that she spoke fluent french and german which she perfected most u.s. at the con men which would become her mantra and life. and then once she married this was a way to escape the boisterousness of the children, perhaps some of the upset over some of those weaknesses in their marriage. in some ways perhaps was also a form of birth control because of what the catholic church would not allowed any artificial contraception. >> thought nine was enough. >> she thought nine was enough and maintained her humor about that. later years he was on the griffin show. he brought up that her son and his wife had 11. well, if i had known it was a competition and might have had more. it probably would. happy to surpass.

>> one trip where they went to russia. that was unusual. >> 1937. this would have been prior. >> wanting to see russia. >> your sine and the apple of for i had gone to england wanted both of his eldest son's to go steady with a socialist at the london school of economics because even though he was the epitome of the capitalist to said the need to know the waves of the future. socialism may be one of them. on that year, the year between the prep school and when jr. went to harvard he went to london and then spend some time in the soviet. fact-finding. would report back to his dad. so taken that she decided she

would go. her daughter said, what can we go to italy. we have been. let's go to the soviet. so of them went. in 1937 imagine, the height of the stalinist era. the soviet union. >> that's great. >> of very adventuresome woman. >> you mentioned she like paris. that reminded me that she was quite the image maker and stage manager. a love how honest about his. >> as i often say, i don't mean to indicate that rose said a more significant role than she did. you mentioned that it was a patriarchal family. her husband ruled the roost. they had two sons. they ruled the roost as well.ey.

killed in the war. but jack and bobby and teddy, there were running the show. i would say if you rent credits for the kennedy family in the kennedy legacy, it would be joe quite appropriately who had a career in hollywood as a producer. joe kennedy sr. would be listed as the executive producer. and rose would have almost all of the other duties. she would be the stage manager, the wardrobe. the key grip. she would have been the best. and the dialogue coach. and certainly she would have had all of the other roles. and then the argument that i make in the book is that as the men began to disappear from the stage, though role for rose gets larger and larger. but she had done by that point

is taken all the typically female roles, work them to the health and then was ready to takeover and become, if you will, the executive producer when necessary. >> yes. >> but that sense of creating an image, that came from rose. i remember the tv show, coffee with the kennedys. creating an image of the family was important there, but also important to the family, the legend of the family. >> it is so true. starts in 1937 as dosing here comes into the new deal. so they are billed as a new deal family. in newspapers began to show joe and rose and their nine children or however many are on the scene at the time. there one that. >> then there were captivated. >> nsa would be as if you had

john and kate plus eight. the kennedys were the first reality show. again, joe sr., because he had had this hollywood career. he wanted the family to have this public image. he was pushing as well, but this is where joe and rose are on the same page. they are on the same script and it is where rose to was attempting to make this family look perfect is the perfect person to state to follow the lead of joe's senior. to the point where when they first appear in 1937 in newspapers with the children in stairstep fashion just simply lined up, one of the major photographers on broadway, he writes to mrs. kennedy, and he is noted for taking beautiful portraits of stars. he says, you have a beautiful family, but i don't think this is the best way to present them. he said, bring them into my studio. i have -- i will put them in a way that is much more becoming.

well, rose was on that immediately. one of the most famous photographs of her was a portrait taken. jack kennedy then put it in his room in his harvard dormitory when he was in college. >> that's neat. so even then. >> even then. even then. and so as they move out over the london in 1938 and show becomes a u.s. ambassador to the port of saint james, there were huge celebrities. not only just on the american stage, but on the world stage. you mentioned the sheer number of children. that made them stand down. that made them different. beautiful and handsome children also active at all different age ranges. and throws herself who prompted someone to say they believe in the store was the first met her knowing she had nine children and get -- the key figure in the short really hard. i even say in the books you may have had somebody image issues

because she was very careful about what she ate. very important to her to maintain his girlish figure. she like nothing better a she get older than to be confused with their daughters. >> she did some of the same things with their children. the index card. she kept a record of their weights and in an adjusted what they were fed according to how much weight they look like they gained places. she had gone when there were a little children and an index card box. this is the other thing she was devoted to, their health. and if you think of it, she is only, the great potato famine of the 1840's when people were dying in droves. and her father was born in the tenements of the north and. so rose obviously gets to move out of there with her father. and then for her children it is all about health and fresh air. from the time these children are born to pushing them in strollers and taking them out

with. two family goes into a low stationery store, biogenetics card box and then begins to keep , writing down their weight every weekend. she would weigh each child and keep tabs on their way. she was a record their religious milestones. first was the unions and the confirmation. a kind of shots. one very many vaccines and she worries some much about their health. the kind of medical procedures you would write down. she would not just keep a record. she was constantly trying to come as you say gates their weight. if someone was gaining weight should get down on calories. someone was -- always variable and tended to be painfully thin. this corridor. said she would say, i would give him cream instead of something less fatty in terms of milk. she wouldimhat use othf roast bt

that would build up the body. when she was chronically late for dinner that she had this very victorian rule. >> started without them. >> the rule would star without the late child, and that child would have to start at whatever course was being served. then he would sneak back into the kitchen and john the cuts to give him the part of the meal he had messed. >> that's where they started from. >> absolutely. >> you know, i remember reading stories that they used to have a map that they pulled down some times in the dining room to give the kids geopolitical lessons. was rosa part of that? did rose tried to stimulate them? get them interested in politics? >> she did. but it was just as we discussed before about the patriarchy, jesse knew was there. if he was sober business then he ran the dinner discussion. but if rose was there and he was

gone then she would run the show. she would run the dinner conversations. she tended not to focus as much on the geopolitical issues or peary's of international relations. she tended to ask the kids in quiz them about church issues and if they had gone to mass bassinet. if it was a sunday, what was the celebration. what was the sermon about. she would test their theology. she would also do grammar lessons in the arithmetic lessons. but she was also noted for cutting of current events pieces from the paper and at a passing those around to the kids are put them on a bulletin board. then there were to read those and discuss them. there world enough. >> to dinner. >> and tenor. >> that's fabulous. you mentioned that theology and the religious discussions. think faith is a big part of your book and a big part of her life. and i wonder, you know, how important it was to her

overcoming tragedy after tragedy speak to that a little bit. >> it is completely important to rose. this is to rose kennedy is. first and foremost of roman catholic. she is raised in that tradition as a very staunch irish catholic woman. she would tell stories in later life about how our own mother who had six children would during the yearly celebration in commemoration, so for 40 days every night the six children would be brought into living room. mrs. fitzgerald would have then kneel on the hardwood floor and say the rosary. >> every day. >> every night. really fond of the grocery. >> and rose said that that -- while there was somewhat painful to be kneeling for the time it took to say the five decades of rose marie him every night and that that was somewhat of a punishment, she thought as well. that was appropriate. she said in later life she would tell the children, if your

upset, if there's been a tragedy, if you're nervous, i was so rather that they pray the rosary rather than turning into a cigarette for a drink. she said, i know that they were claiming that that help keep their weight in check. iron dennis well, but she said, if only they would pray the rosary, that would be much better. in their stories about when her daughter pat had an emergency appendectomy and was brought home and an infection set in. before their roster back for another surgery bros was praying the rosary over pat. in a way it sounds a bit unsophisticated, i think, today, but i can remember my own mother when i was about six and a fever. my mother panda religious medals to my pajamas as a means of helping to get beyond this illness. and so this was something that

clearly was indoctrinated in my own mother he would have been that generation. and i know that my grandmother who would have been in a generation of rose, my grandmother would visit us on weekends. she would remove herself from the family, whenever we were doing. go and just disappear. i would wonder where grandma was we would find her in the choir live from. she played the rosary every afternoon. this was a great source of comfort. the tactile feel of the rosary beads in her and gave her comfort. >> do you think that catholicism, because our first catholic president. do you think that helps create that he does, that kennedy eked us of taking care of others, a contributory life. how that might have expressed itself in their politics. >> i think it did. certainly teddy, the only brother still live to write a memoir that came out.

>> wonderful. >> the day he died. you put it beautifully. about the impact of religion on them, but he specifically said in true compass that the gospel of matthew, i believe is chapter 25, but corporal works of mercy, clothing the naked, tending to the sick, taking care of the diseased. that is what rose was committed to. taking her children to examples of how they can partake. i think she taught that ito's. we after member that she raised her children and pre vatican catholicism which would be more about self denial that it was reaching out to others. by giving her children that core of catholicism. there policy. about reaching out to the underprivileged.

>> taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. that's interesting. throughout her life she experienced a lot of tragedies. and i wonder how it help to cure those. can you say any more about that? we will take a break pretty soon >> well, rose would turn immediately to religion and to our faith in to where grocery into the mass as soon as you would get word that one of her children had been injured. when she heard that he had been shot she was off to church to pray. when he passed away the next day the first thing she did was go off to mass. that's what she did after jack was killed as well. she went to mass every day, but she found great comfort there, particularly because the altar had been dedicated to joe jr. >> let's take a break, and we will come back and talk about the kennedys. >> great.

>> on the bill. "after words" is available via pot cast. a visit booktv.org and click pot cast on the upper left side of the page. select which broadcast to elected download and listen after -- "after words" will you travel. >> we are back with barbara perry. thank you for being here. i wanted to jump right into what a great campaigner. when i was researching, rose was the best in the family. and i wonder what you thought about that. she helped out with john and bobby's campaign. they consider kind of a secret weapon. >> they surely did and for good reason. she really was the best campaigner in the crowd. there were all very get it, but she started this when she was a liberal. fiver six years old and 1890's. her dad had been in the u.s. congress. the u.s. house of representatives.

she like to say that she had been in the spotlight since she was a little girl. .. it helps again remove herself from unlimited childbirth, but she also loved the roar of the greece paint, the roar of the crowd. sheila to be out on stage. from the time jack ran in 1946 for the u.s. house of representatives, they would begin to bring rose out and she to tell the storyboa how he

had been wounded in the war and was a war hero, how she lost a son in the war, that she was -- jack would tell people that come especially women's audiences. so rose could really reach out to women. remember that jack was not married until much later in life. he started his campaigns in 1946. he didn't marry into 1953. said there was no spouse for him to bring out, so there was rose. we also have to keep in mind that her husband had become politically toxic when he said some undiplomatic things about the united states and britain possibly losing the war to the nazis. >> do you think joe had political ambitions? >> guest: id. there are stories he wanted to be the first irish catholic president of the united states. and he was moving in that direction with all of his contacts in the media administration and certainly having been ambassador. that's not viewed as having been highly successful tenure, and he

ended it on this very sour note of saying things that were very undiplomatic about the u.s. and britain. so he really had to stay behind the scenes. obviously, it worked behind the scenes for the suns, the remaining cents, and he put his money into their campaigns. >> host: he transferred his ambition to them. >> guest: and he was the street the key strategist. most of the time behind the scenes were as rose could be brought out and she had the added benefit of being rose. so in boston in campaigns in boston she could link to our very popular father and namesake for her son. >> host: so joe wasn't on the stump that much? >> guest: if you look back to the photos youl veryarely see him. and, indeed, when jack is nominated in 1960, joe is out in los angeles where the convention was but he has to stay hidden from view in the register in which they w all living.

when kennedy goes to the convention hall to accept the nomination, he brings his mother, and she goes out onto the podium with him and she waved to the crowd. it's jack and his dad only appear the day after the election when all is said and done at all is over. then joe comes out and there's the famous portrait of a whole family at hyannis port all a glow in the close victory but victory nevertheless of jack. >> host: through these grand parties when jack was first running. didn't rose and her daughters, and sort of give people a feel like they could come meet royalty? was it there that part of their appeal the? >> guest: they were called tea party. 10 edt. -- kennedy, 19 for six the very first one for the congressional campaign. then they just kept doing these through the senate campaigns. in fact, when jack defeated lodge, is quite an upset in

1952. lodge was quoted as saying it was those damned tea parties that did me in. but you're right to say that, first of all women love to come to those because they could meet what passed for wealthy in the united states. and the fact that the kennedy family had rubbed elbows literally with royalty during their time in prewar england. and so women would be given these engraved invitation, come meet the kennedys come and women were known to go out and buying addresses and some some of them even more foremost. there are wonderful photographs at the kennedy library of women just lined up in these big ballrooms of the finest hotels in various towns and cities around massachusetts, and they would be rose in receivin in thg line usually one or two other daughters, and then jack, sometimes because of his bad back hanging onto crutches, which as his mother said, only sort of helped his image because older women wanted to mother

hen, younger women wanted to marry him host the so the kennedys were celebrity to help further political cause. >> guest: they were the epitome of the modern era of emerging a celebrity and politics and charisma. and media for that matter. >> host: right. because jack kennedy for presidency came at a time when tv was really becoming a force in the country. and as you said, "life" magazine was a real key to their popularity early on. >> guest: it really was. >> host: started about the time they're becoming popular. >> guest: it literally begins as they come into the roosevelt administration with joe's first position in the new deal, and then off to england ago. you and i talked about the fact that can be used to say that "life" magazine was their family scrapbook because -- it really was. "life" magazine loved the kennedys. and why not? they were again a handsome, beautiful family. they were doing interesting

activities and interesting things in their private lives. obviously, waited out everything that was going on in some of the males private life but certainly in the public eye, the sports in the figure end of celebrity hood and also would be a part of hollywood at every sometimes as the president interest in rat pack, et cetera. there was always this glow about the kennedys that a very slick, glossy, big page newsstand magazine just love to follow them around. then as you say, u.s. television on that, you like your television on. i point to the fact that in 1962 when eisenhower was elected the first time, the statistic i've read shows that 20% of american households have televisions. by the time kerry was elected in 1960 that it caught up to 80%. so the kennedys with their beautiful look and charisma happened to merge onto the scene

with modern media and with modern television. it's a perfect blend. >> host: image was more important. >> guest: obviously the first debate with richard nixon proves that historically. >> host: segueing off that come you mentioned that you think rose really gave birth to the whole idea of camelot. that may have been jack to articulate it but rose sort of created that mythology. >> guest: i think you have to give rose quite a bit of credit. we know that jackie coined the term the week after president kennedy's assassination in the famous interview with teddy white of "life" magazine we should point out, but it's rose who has the royalty concept going with the family, and making them such a beautiful presence on the world stage and the american stage. she helped jackie have the material to work with it seems to me. so i would call her perhaps the

mother of, queen mother of camelot, and jackie was the queen. >> host: when john kennedy was assassinated then, that whole image system kind of came crashing down, how did she handle that? >> guest: anyone can imagine just how horrible that would be to lose a child to that kind of violence. >> host: right, after losing joe in world war ii. >> guest: joe junior and world war ii. and kick has been taken in a plane crash in 1948. so rose is literally seeing her children almost in reverse order disappear from the scene. and 96 for in the summer of 64 rose wrote in her journal, this is unusual for her because she's usually tried to be positive and optimistic, this would be in the summer of 64, so just after, the summer after his assassination. and she writes at what it's like an hyannis port that some and

she says, gone are the presidential helicopters that we would just look for to every weekend, bringing my son, the president. and i would see his children run out to him to honor -- gone are those days. she missed that and she even says gone are the days when we were the most -- she said when we are said to be the most powerful family in the world. that was something, it is revealing and she, it's both human and public as well. she even mentioned that they all tried to get together and almost irish wake style that summer, and joan kennedy, joan bennett kennedy who was teddy's first wife, was a very good pianist. so she would sit and play at the hyannis port home and they would all sing the old tunes that they love, the old irish songs. rose said, but then at some point we started singing one of jack's favorites, and she said everyone just dissolved in tears and ran from theer and i

thought that was the most -- kind of a pre-oprah culture where everyone goes on television and talks about their pain and the grief and dr. phil is there to help them. again, very victorian for this family to hide its grief. >> host: kennedy's don't cry. >> guest: candy don't cry was the mantra of joe senior and rose tried to follow that as well. it was a hard time for her that she gets through by her faith and by being, time to be with family, sometimes by going off to europe and trying to get away from things. and yet she was in europe going around and trying to raise money for the planned kennedy library. she was still remembering her son but in a positive way. she told a story about how the manager of the ritz hotel in paris where she always did came up to her and burst into tears. so she would be trying to be strong for everyone, reassuring and people would break down because of their sadness over the loss of resident can become

her son. >> host: you point out she was very human at the point and she did resort to some medication to help her get through it. i think that gives you a more three-dimensional picture of her. in public she was very stoic, and somehow saw the country through this, through their grief with her reserve and ability to carry on. but in private she did have some moments where she really was in a great deal of pain. >> guest: she was a lifelong insomniac, and she was very sensitive to noise. and so she always had trouble sleeping, and she told the story about when jack was in the south pacific, in the pacific theater in world war ii, that she would wake up in a sweat with her heart palpitating in the middle of the night because she would have these nightmares about his being lost. this was before her son joe was lost in the european theater, and before jack's boat was something he was almost lost.

she was almost anticipating what could happen as a mother would. so after all of these things she'd heard what happened begin happening, it had an even greater impact on her ability to sleep and she would have nightmares after dallas. and so she would turn to pharmaceuticals and sleeping pills to help her get through that. >> host: as your portrait, document some of those human moments, how do you feel, it seems to me, and you said this to me, that makes you think that she was even more courageous than we realized because she did have to deal with a great deal of misery and pain. it was at this she just push it away but she tried to get past it. >> guest: she did it again with the combination of faith of sometimes having to turn to pharmaceuticals but i think that shows them how courageous she was because i was in grade school, in high school at the time and my mother gave me as a gift at christmas rose kennedy's memoir, times to remember. and my mother was a huge fan of

rose kennedy's. so i remember my mother using rose kennedy as an example and a role model for all of us, that here's this woman, even when bad things happen, my mother would say she does have lots of money and that helps. but i was a mother, it only gives her more time to worry about these things. so of course at that time, and rose doesn't talk about taking pharmaceuticals in her memoir, but now that i see that's the complete portrait of her, it makes her seem more human but as you say it makes her seem more courageous. in public she is able to put on this stoic presence, help the country along with her daughters-in-law. they would counter these tragedies to make the country stronger and and go on but as she would always say, we mourn the dead but we go on for the living. >> host: one of the things that the kennedys did quite well i thought was took a personal tragedy and then try to do

something about it in a public way on a national scale. i wonder if you talk a little bit about how rose towards the later part of her life really got involved in trying to do something about mental retardation and speak out about it, but that it took a while. and that came from, i assume, are experts with her daughter, rosemary. >> guest: indeed, her daughter rosemary born with what was described at the time, as she got a little bit older and was manifesting developmental disabilities and a lower iq, experts told rose this would've been in the 1920s, that rosemary was mentally post the development as it does, is that -- >> guest: they manifested themselves through her mother in very basic ways. that she learned to walk at a later age and her two older brothers but she is the oldest girl born, we should add at the height of the spanish flu epidemic in 1918. but she didn't learn to talk as

rapidly as the boys. she didn't learn to read and write it and when she did right, it's a long her mother that she was writing from the right side of the page to the left. in modern times when i think it was simply a learning disability of some sort, but the combination of these things, and you can see photographs of little toddler rosemary with her next sibling, kick, or kathleen, and kathleen is perhaps one years old and she is being held up and walking by her sister who's two years old as also being held up and walking. so her physical slowness as well as mental slowness and the kennedys were told that she had this mental retardation. they kennedys were really way ahead of the game and attempting to mainstream her, because they, they were told you had to center off. >> host: they didn't institutionalize her treachery not until many, many years later when many people know she had a lobotomy that jokingly seen had

ordered for her in 1941 without consulting rose. speak he didn't tell rose? >> guest: as far as we no, he did not tell rose is going to do this. >> host: dgc any reaction to that? >> guest: roasted not the a record of her feelings about that a couple of exceptions, that she does explain how she felt about and that she did regret for the rest of her life and was angry at her husband because of it. and then i came upon a little-known interview that she did, in the early '70s felicia went down to palm beach estate with roasted they are to and interviewed her for a book she was doing called doers and i would yours. about great matriarchs in america. she asked rose about rosemary and said, you don't talk much about her.

and rose burst into tears and became choked up. and this would have been 30 years after the procedure, at which point in rosemary did have to be institutionalized. because a lobotomy went terribly wrong. now, we should say two things. one is that this was thought to be in 1941 a procedure that worked to try to minimize anxiety and depression which rosemary also suffered from. so joe who was always up on all the latest medical procedures and, the kennedys can always go and get the best medical procedures, they always talk to the best people in the field and the people in the field were telling them at the time that they thought a lobotomy might be appropriate for rosemary. we know now, of course, that it was not. it was disastrous to the other thing is that they kennedys, rose and joe, had it out gradually to each other that they really told each other bad news. in fact rose asked that joke not

be told of the present assassination until the day after. he wanted to give him one more night of what he -- windshield would be successful sleet. he was an invalid himself but they have this lifelong pact as a married couple that when they were apart and getting a bad news and the other was a way, they wouldn't tell each other. but they also just tried to keep bad news for me get the so that the other wouldn't worry. so in some ways it was just hard and parcel of their marital bond. >> host: how did they get from that to her actually being sort of an activist for helping the mentally ill? >> guest: as you say the kennedy family will take you strategies and turn them into good for others. so right after, special olympics would be the perfect example in the '60s but even before that when joe, jr. was killed in the war in 1944, his father in the family founded the joseph p. kennedy, jr. foundation, at the

time for disadvantaged children, it was called. and they then moved to that foundation towards helping the mentally, and that became the number one mission. and it is to this day and the special olympics torch out of the. but the family could say anything about rosemary because mental retardation was hidden from public view, particularly since this was a family wanting to move ahead in politics. only in the late '50s, and as president kennedy then syndicate it gets close to running for office, does the word began to filter out from the family about rosemary. and only in interviews in the late '50s and early '60s does rose began to utter the words my daughter was mentally. otherwise the family would not talk about it prior to that. with that eunice kennedy shriver, the president's sister runs with that mission very much involved with her mother and

they go out and raise millions and millions of dollars for that year to. >> host: and they have the power to do that. >> guest: and there was the cause of rose. she was then much like more traditional first lady's but in the modern and if i can say that, were a first lady will pick one policy area to focus on. rose kennedy did that, and her policy i was the personal one for her, mental retardation. both trying to help those who are already born with it, and second trying to prevent it by, for example, encouraging women to have measles vaccination so they wouldn't contract german measles while pregnant and pass along a mental disability. >> host: let me ask you a tough question you may be thicker. rose is covering her family's image but there's also this sort of panorama pathology in the family. there's drinking. later there's suicide and philandering.

how do you reconcile those? some people have tried to make the case that rose contributed to that in some way. did you find it in your research? what do you think? >> guest: i am a political scientist, not a psychologist so i won't go too far down that road, body will say that rose herself recognized, i think in her own way in her own private writings, the story about wishing in her journal that the children would pray the rosary when they were nervous rather than turned to pills and alcohol. when it became clear in the 1970s, because of a very public arrest of some of her older grandchildren, for pot possession, like i said about some of them were putting the high in hyannis port -- [laughter] >> host: they certainly were. >> guest: rose, i thought for the first time any of the materials that i read actually addressed that "inconvenient truth" in her journal. and she said how disappointed

she was that should hope that her grandchildren with all the bandages and the name and the celebrity status would have stood up against drug use, which she said i realize is very widespread. she said, pot is being used in the private schools and it's in homes. she said i know they're exposed to it but she said i would hope the older grandchildren would stand up against it. so she was very, very disappointed. but we should say that if you go back through roses materials and her papers, including her tribalist, she was carrying what the npr syndicate shows call, a people's pharmacy along with her. because she had all of these various afflictions, perhaps even somewhat psychosomatic i might say. she had a lot of europe on 10 trucks a day rather than $10 a day. she had every form of prescription and adventure nonprescription drugs known to

mankind, that she just want to have with her. sometimes she would take it, including something that i understood from older relatives was pretty, and household called dash it was an opiate-based drug is a lot of over-the-counter drugs were for many years that was a household medicine cabinets, if you can imagine that it would be given for -- upset stomachs, to keeping chilly, it would be given to a hysterical menopausal women. and rose had this on her tribalist well into the 1970s when it began to be listed in massachusetts as a controlled substance. so it appears to me that even she may have had some issue. i don't want to go to the point of saying an addiction, but she certainly indicated by the drugs measures taken with her on trips that she had quite an array of medication. sometimes perhaps even what people do today, they end up taking medications for the symptoms that are caused by the of the medications that they are

taking. so i don't want to say that she contributed to the addiction problems, it could be some sort of genetic issue within the family that rose may have had as well. >> host: we're in the dark set of camel here for a minute. what about chappaquiddick and what about her reaction to that, or how she handled that? >> guest: i can commission does have a lot interpersonal papers but she does write to people about it at the time and has lived in her journal about it. she tells what it was like to see teddy the day after the accident, and that she said he wasn't like himself. she said maybe was because he'd been injured in this car accident, or maybe the death of the girl who was with him, but she said teddy was not like himself. so she pointed that out. she mentioned that jackie had once called teddy the black sheep of the family. >> host: did she? >> gst: that's what rose

said. but she said i didn't see the pictures that i didn't see it myself. i don't think he was, but she knows something is dreadfully wrong and she's also very upset that the press are hounding her and the hyannis port compound, and she can hardly come and go because they are there. so she, as we know, meets with mary jo's parents in the kennedy apartment in new york. she empathizes and sympathizes, she says i lost my daughter, kathleen, at the exact same age of 28, as your daughter. and so she does try to reach out to the family. but i think she's really perplexed by exactly what happened, how could teddy have done this. he's the baby of the family. he's the coddled one of the family. he's the one who was often as little boy when his older brothers would get into trouble, he would be the one to go to joe to tell them because they think joe would go easy on the little kid. and yet it's teddy who was

expelled from harvard and joseph kony are going into the army for two years, which he does, but he ends up spinning most of his time at a base just outside of versailles. so it wasn't harsh punishment. >> host: so she helped into that and probably is what you're saying? >> guest: i think she does. i think she does by being the supportive mother that she always was for her children, and maybe not able to admit to herself the more "inconvenient truth" about his life. but she does talk in her oral history and in her journals about how the boys would misbehave, and how they were encouraged by their father to come tell them the truth, the funny story but also tell him the truth to it and then she would say, and then my husband would take care of it. and she didn't seem to see the conflict between her victorian goal of having all the children be responsible, the artwork, which is often in the writings and her mrs. to them but she

didn't seem to conflict between having joe at the head of the clan to take care of all the misbehaviors. and so there were times in law school where teddy would crash a car, noted by the way in charleston for going over the speed limit many times and being arrested it but he also crashed the car during law school over in your. what did you do but take care of it, he was the fixer in the family. >> host: was teddy the one who is closest to rose, or was that bobby? >> guest: i think of the boys it was joe, jr. to begin with because he was the number one son. he was the fair haired boy. when he passes, i think that role goes to bobby because he so much younger. rose and her mother would say oh, he's going to become a sissy because he is surrounded by girls in the birth order. and rose even says later on after his death, she's approached by a doctor wants

information about a film and rose lived right by item number too much about his boyhood because he was the seventh child and he was in the midst of all these other jafa and so i can't really give you details. having said that though, he was the sensitive one. he was the smallest of the four boys in stature. he was the most religious. he was the most moral. so i think there's a beautiful clip, you can see it on youtube, of bobby campaigning for senate in new york in 1954 and his mother on the stage and they have this great bantering dialogue going, that i think really shows how close they were. when bobby is killed it then goes to teddy to be the youngest son, the baby, but not to be the page you're. i think he really gets his mother for the rest of his life and he knows just how far he can push her, and he knows just how much he has to take of her and her ongoing letters about don't

say this or this is a grammatical error, or you're dressing improperly, or this is how you should speak. .. for all of the good her sons did, and we should at her daughter's. and let us not forget dean kennedy smith who was the ambassador to ireland during the clinton administration, served five years in thatol